Photo Gallery: Peace Symbol

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Arlo Guthrie

Photograph by Bettman/CORBIS

The world-famous peace symbol, which turned 50 on April 4, 2008, was the brainchild of a British designer seeking a simple but powerful emblem for an anti-nuclear-weapons march in London in 1958. The symbol, which superimposes the semaphore signals for N (nuclear) and D (disarmament), caught on worldwide and quickly became a universal touchstone for the causes of peace and nonviolence.

A new National Geographic book, Peace: The Biography of a Symbol by photographer Ken Kolsbun and journalist Michael S. Sweeney, takes a look at the famous pictogram.

Here, a skywritten peace sign drifts above peace activist and folk singer Arlo Guthrie during a 1969 show at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Hungary Peace Rally

Photograph by Zsolt Szigetvary/epa/ CORBIS

Some 2,000 antiwar protesters with torches form a peace symbol at Heroes Square in Budapest, Hungary, in 2005. The event marked the second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Los Angeles Graffiti

Photograph by Joseph Sohm/Visions of America/CORBIS

Graffiti on a wall in Los Angeles, California, includes a prominent peace symbol. This photo was taken in 1992, the year the city erupted in violence following the acquittal of four police officers accused in the beating of black motorist Rodney King.

Gerald Holtom

Photograph courtesy the Holtom family

Gerald Holtom, seen here in his fabric design studio, first considered using a biblical cross for his peace symbol. But protestations from the local clergy convinced him to alter his design, and he settled on a circle (representing the globe) that contained a figure that he said resembled "a human being in despair."

Painted Volkswagen

Photograph by Ken Kolsbun

Elaborately painted cars such as this peace symbol-sporting Volkswagen Beetle were commonplace in San Francisco in 1969—the height of protests against the Vietnam War.

Mortarboard With Peace Sign

Photograph by Bettman/CORBIS

A student attends Indiana University's 1971 commencement wearing a mortarboard decorated with a peace symbol. That year, anti-Vietnam War fervor peaked in the wake of the My Lai massacre, killings by National Guard troops at Kent State University, and the release of the Pentagon Papers.

U.S. Soldier in Vietnam

Photograph by Bettman/CORBIS

Embodying the national debate over U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, a U.S. soldier in Vietnam wears a peace symbol amulet alongside a bandolier of bullets.

Capitol Hill Protest

Photograph by Wally McNamee/CORBIS

Protesters gather around a large peace symbol during an antiwar rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., circa 1970.

American Flag

Photograph by Wally McNamee/CORBIS

Protestors at a 1971 antiwar rally in Washington, D.C., wave a U.S. flag that has its stars replaced by a peace symbol.

John Lennon Memorial

Photograph by AP/Dima Gavrysh

Visitors to Strawberry Fields in New York's Central Park often decorate this mosaic—built to honor slain Beatle John Lennon—with flowers in the shape of a peace symbol. The combination reads: "Imagine peace."

Philippines Protest

Photograph by Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images

Iraq war protesters in 2004 formed a peace symbol in front of the Basilika Ng Nazareno in Manila, Philippines. Demonstrators called on the government to pull its small military force out of Iraq after Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was kidnapped there and threatened with beheading. The government did withdraw its forces, and de la Cruz was released.

Peace Symbol in the Sand

Photograph by Momatiuk-Eastcott/CORBIS

Hikers in 2005 sculpted this enormous peace symbol into the bleached landscape of White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. White Sands is home to a U.S. missile range which houses the Trinity site, where the first nuclear weapon was tested in 1945.